Pair become parents to grandson

FIVE years ago, Donald Fairclough received a phone call asking him to come and collect his grandson, otherwise he would be placed into foster care.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he dropped his tools and left work to rescue four-year-old Nick.

“Nick’s mum just couldn’t care for him,” Donald’s wife Lyn said.

“It terrifies us, we were told straight out if we don’t take him it will be foster care.

“We can’t imagine how this child would have survived.”

Since that fateful day, Donald and Lyn have become Nick’s full-time carers and ultimately taking on the role as his parents.

“There are still lots of struggles within him...there are a lot of things inside him that he’s trying to deal with,” Lyn said.

“When he was with his mother you could see he was being the parent and she was being the child.”

While things have changed a lot since they were first-time parents, they had a little practice when Nick was a young child, caring for him from time to time.

Thankfully they have been able to call on Grandparents as Parents for assistance and also on Nick’s school, Glasshouse Country Christian College.

“If it wasn’t for their help, we’d be on our heads because everything has changed,” Lyn said.

The culture shock came when Nick was admitted to day care and the staff said he was ready to attend school.

There are 60 GAP families on the Sunshine Coast caring for more than 200 children and the support has been invaluable for the Faircloughs.

“If there’s a problem, you can bet your bottom dollar someone else in the group has gone through it,” Lyn said.

She said the biggest misconception people had with grandparents taking on the parental role was that they were paid as foster carers but that was not the case, which made life pretty tough sometimes as most were surviving on a pension.

But through the assistance of GAP, clothing and hampers were donated and Lyn’s Glasshouse Mountains community always pitched in around Christmas time.